Canadian Lawyer

44 A u g u s t 2 0 1 4 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m not be identified, paint a picture of a somewhat rocky relationship in the early days as two very different approaches to justice came face-to-face — particularly when it came to areas such as criminal law and human rights law. The incoming Conservatives were wary of what many of them saw as Eastern elites, judicial activism, and a public ser- vice they believed had been serving a left-of-centre agenda for years. Many had railed in the past against the "Court Party" — reform-minded professionals, academ- ics, and interest groups who were using the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the courts to achieve change. On the other side was a Justice Department with a proud tradition of speaking truth to power dating back to Canada's first justice minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. Since the adoption of the Charter in 1982, the department had played a key role in overseeing the changes the Charter and Charter chal- lenges were having on Canada's justice system and Canadian society. The Conservative government felt the department it had inherited from former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler was too focused on human rights and not enough on criminal justice. "The Department of Justice was basically the department of human rights," explains one senior Conservative. "Human rights law was everything. That is all they were doing. It was a very left-wing agenda. They had hired a lot of people, practi- cally a whole floor full of lawyers, that were all human rights people." One of the first things to be shut down when the Conservatives came to power was the Law Commission of Canada, which had a number of studies in the works on everything from policing and "what is a crime" to indigenous legal tradi- tions, vulnerable workers, and the growing influence of international law on domestic law. "The loss of the Law Commission will deprive the government, Parliament, and the judiciary of independent advice from an entity that drew on the ideas of some of the best experts of various disciplines, including jurists, philosophers, criminolo- gists, sociologists, economist etc.," Yves Le Bouthillier, the outgoing president of the law commission, told the Commons jus- tice committee in November 2006. "More importantly, it will deprive Canadians of a non-partisan forum in which they were invited to debate fundamental questions for our society." The Conservatives, however, saw it differently — particularly Harper and his chief of staff at the time, Ian Brodie. "That was just all left-wing propaganda stuff," explains one Conservative. "A use- less waste of money." The government also took an axe to the Court Challenges Program, eventually backing off on the decision to cut funding for court chal- lenges by linguistic minorities. "The Court Challenges Program was just an industry of people who lived off this thing," the senior Conservative explains. But the biggest difference between the Conservatives and the Justice Department has been a fundamental question of which should prevail: the Charter and the Constitution or the will of a democratically elected House of Commons. In former minister Cotler's 2004/05 TIME: EVENT: 12-month, part-time, executive LL.M. for lawyers and business professionals Advance your career to the next level! Learn important legal and business concepts that can be immediately applied to better serve your clients. Explore the implications of real-life cases in an increasingly complex global business environment. Acquire in-depth knowledge of how the law interacts with both the private and public sectors. For more information please contact Jane Kidner, Assistant Dean Professional Legal Education at j.kidner@utoronto.ca http://www.law.utoronto.ca/programs/GPLLM.html or visit our website: ntitled-8 1 14-07-15 2:22 PM

• Cover